LIBRABY OF CONGRESS. 
B\4S0l 

shemyAys 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



;^anuals of jFattI) anH Outp^ 

EDITED BY REV. J. S. CANTWELL, D.D. 



A SERIES of short books in exposition of prominent teachings 
of the Universalist Church, and the moral and rehgious 
obhgations of believers. They are prepared by writers selected for 
their ability to present in brief compass an instructive and helpful 
Manual on the subject undertaken. The volumes will be affirmative 
and constructive in statement, avoiding controversy, while specifically 
unfolding doctrines. 

The Manuals of Faith and Duty are issued at intervals of 
three or four months; uniform in size, style, and price. 

No. I. 
THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 

By Rev. J. Coleman Adams, D.D., Chicago. 

No. II. 
JESUS THE CHRIST. 

By Rev. S. Crane, D.D., Norwalk, O. 

No. III. 
REVELATION. 

By Rev. I. M. Atwood, D.D., President of the Theological 
School, Canton, N. Y. 

No. IV. 

CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

By Rev. Warren S. Woodbridge, Adams, Mass. 

Among the subjects and writers already selected are ; " Retribu- 
tion," by Rev. J. M. Pullman, D.D., and "The Birth from Above," 
by Rev. Charles F. Lee. Other volumes and writers will be an- 
nounced hereafter. 



published by the 

UNIVERSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSE, 

BOSTON, MASS. 
Western Branch : 69 Dearborn Street, Chicago. 



ISanuals of iFaitij anti ©utg< 



No. IV 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 



BY 



REV. WARREN S. WOODBRIDGE. 



''I AM COME THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE LIFE, AND THAT THEY 



MIGHT HAVE IT MORE ABUNDANTLY. 






John X. 10. 



BOSTON: 

UNIVERSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSE. 
1889. 







Copyright, 1889, 
By THE UnIVERSALIST rUBLISHING HoUSE. 




mnifaersita irtss: 
John Wilson" and Son, Cambridge. 



31 iiital force lies back oi all tt^z grointfj of 
Ijiiman c|}aractcr, as it lies back of all grolrit}} of 
i\)Z external iBorlti* ilnti as t\)z countless lilies 
of iljz fielti confess to one common, perbatiing iiital 
force, so t{}e leafaes of i])z tree of life, tfje brancfjes 
of tlje true binz, are iljz organic outgroiBt]^ of tJje 
same principle. 2E|^is common, pcrbatiing life is 
Cljrist. 

Prof. J. L. Diman. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 



THE theme assigned to this number of the 
"Manuals of Faith and Duty " has definite 
limits. Of necessity each writer is confined to 
the most condensed treatment of a particular 
phase of Christian faith and duty. The object 
of this volume is to exhibit Christ in the life 
of man. In the treatment two courses are open. 
One might attempt an exhaustive and profound 
essay from a metaphysical standpoint, dealing 
with the deeper problems of the soul ; or he 
might sketch the workings of Christ in the life 
in their more external aspects, keeping all the 
time near the daily walk and conversation of 
men. To adopt either one of these methods 
exclusively, would be to fail to meet the require- 
ments of the book. It is not designed to be a 
metaphysical essay, and yet it is hoped it will 



6 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

not prove a superficial treatment of the theme. 
The great aim, however, will be to be practicaL 
The governing purpose will be to make helpful 
suggestions. The movement will be along famil- 
iar lines. The intent is ever to keep close to 
the life of men, and to point the way by which 
the Christ life may be brought more abundantly 
into human hearts. 

T. — Historical Reality of the Christ. 

We must be impressed, first of all, with the 
fact that the Christ is. We have had already 
in this series a volume on " Jesus the Christ," — 
a statement of what He is.^ For the purpose 
of this volume we only ask that the fact that 
the Christ is be laid hold upon. Some say, the 
Christ has been. Some say. He is yet to come 
in His greatest power. His existence is not 
only a past fact, but a present one. We have 
full knowledge of the Christ from the New Tes- 
tament record. The story is inspiring. We may 
and do feed upon it. We have also knowledge 
of the Christ in Christian institutions. The 
Church bears witness of the Christ. The Lord's 

1 Manuals of Faith and Duty, No. II., by Rev. Stephen 
Crane, D.D. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 7 

Supper testifies of Him. The book, then, is not 
all. Nor is the Christ's life confined to three 
decades of the world's history. The Christ, in 
Christian institutions and in spirit, continues 
to be in the life of the world. We must not 
make Him remote and unreal. He speaks not 
only the Palestinian word, which comes full of 
life down the ages, but He also speaks into the 
hearts and souls of men in this hour. This is 
the " age to come," the era of the Christ. It 
now is the time which floated before the vision 
of the prophet, as with uplifted soul he was im- 
pressed with divine truth. It is the " great and 
notable day of the Lord." " A king reigns and 
prospers, and executes justice and judgment in 
the earth." ^ " The spirit of the Lord hath 
rested " upon one, " the spirit of wisdom and 
understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, 
the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the 
Lord." 2 The one anointed "to preach good 
tidings unto the meek," sent -'to bind up the 
broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the cap- 
tives, and the opening of the prison to them that 
are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of 
the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God ; 

1 Jeremiah xxiii. 5. ^ Isaiah xi. 2. 



8 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

to comfort all that mourn," ^ — this one has come 
and is with us. Though in bodily and visible 
presence His days on earth were few, and we 
are separated from that period by the inter- 
vening centuries, yet in a most deep and prac- 
tical sense we ought to say and feel that He 
is, and not that He has been. We do not want 
to look across the gulf of years. We want the 
€hrist with us here and how. This is the era 
.of the Christ. "It is the last time." 2 The age 
to come has come; and there is no other age 
provided for in the economy of God, or revealed 
in His word. 

n. — Hindrances to Christ's Work in 
THE Life. 

But there are hindrances to Christ's work in 
the life. There are antichrists. Though the 
Christ is, He may not have entered your heart 
or mine ; He may not have touched our lives ; 
He may not have reached us with His help and 
power. Current theology has it that we are 
fallen in Adam, prone to evil, averse to good. 
There is no doubt of a hereditary taint, of an 
existent moral corruption and tendency to evil. 

1 Isaiah Ixi. 1-3. 2 1 John ii. 18. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 9 

The Gospel sums up these tendencies, and calls 
them, in one comprehensive term, " the world ; " 
no doubt because in fact there was in Christ 
and the disciples a spirit and life sharply con- 
trasted with the spirit and life of all the world 
beside. This same tendency is called in the 
individual "the flesh." The evil, sinful life is 
the carnal, the fleshly life. And, further, this 
proneness to evil is projected into another form, 
is personified and called "the devil." "The 
world, the flesh, and the devil " are one and 
the same thing in different aspects. They are 
names for all corruption or corrupting influ- 
ences, viewed now as one whole existent in the 
world and opposed to the spirit of Christ, now 
as working in the individual life, and again 
vividly as having a separate and personal being 
and name. We have not yet reached a point 
where we may drop the terms " the world, the 
flesh, and the devil." These words have not lost 
their original force, nor have the tendencies for 
which they stand ceased to be. The roots of 
sin are the same in all ages. The occasions of 
sin vary with the times. 

What are the corrupting tendencies of to-day ? 
What do we find when we make search for the 



10 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

things that are opposed to the Christ, and keep 
His spirit out of our lives ? Saint John tersely 
defined sin as " the transgression of the law." ^ 
We watit to know something of the temptations, 
the motives, the inducements that invite to the 
transgression of the law. The question presents 
itself in practical form in this wise : Why is 
there so large a proportion of grasping selfish- 
ness, so much indirection and dishonesty, so 
much that is brutal and repulsive and unlovely 
in life ? What hinders the coming in of those 
graces and virtues of the Christian life, so ad- 
mirable and so attractive ? As we look for an 
answer we shall find the causes partly in the 
already corrupted and weakened spirit of man, 
and partly in the outward circumstances that 
minister to his depravity. 

Man is, as theology has said, " prone to evil." 
He is also, as theology has neglected to say, 
prone to good; that is, he is a free and finite 
being, with mixed motives and an imperfect 
character. He has power to choose the evil, 
and power to choose the good. Of himself he 
stands ever at the parting of two roads. He 
may take the strait and narrow path that leads 

1 1 John iii. 4. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 11 

to life, or the broad way that leads to moral 
ruin. Each passing day opens such an oppor- 
tunity, offers such a privilege, brings such a 
responsibility. The decision of this hour has 
an effect upon the decision of the next. The 
choice of the right to-day makes easier and 
more likely the choice of the right to-morrow. 
The choice of the wrong to-day makes easier and 
more likely the choice of the wrong to-morrow. 
Ea,ch repetition of right choice intrenches one 
against wrong choice. Each repetition of wrong 
choice intrenches one against right choice. 
And were it not for God and His ministration 
through Christ, one might become hopelessly 
fixed in the love and choice of evil. Under the 
working of this divine law, we find ourselves in 
the condition which Saint Paul so vividly de- 
scribes. Will is weakened ; motive is wanting. 
It is easiest to choose the wrong. We have to 
struggle against the weakness caused either by 
our own habit or the habit of our ancestry. 
When we are in such condition, when we more 
easily and more often choose the wrong, we can 
say with Saint Paul, " Sin dwelleth in me." ^ 
We then find a law that when we would do good 

1 Romans vii. 20. 



12 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

evil is present with us.^ And when, in our bet- 
ter moments, we delight in the law of the Lord, 
and find that other law warring against the law 
of God, then it does seem to be not us, but sin 
that dwelleth in us, by which we are provoked 
to evil works. The struggle seems to be, and 
may well be described as, a warfare between 
ourselves and sin; and it does seem that sin 
has a strength and form and existence of its 
own. It is in reality a warfare between our 
better, higher selves and ourselves down at the 
lower levels ; a struggle between our nobler in- 
stincts and our baser passions, between our 
higher thought and conscience and our weak- 
ened will and perverted desire. The good that 
we would we do not, but the evil that we would 
not that we do.^ Under this law one may rise 
or fall in spiritual life and moral strength. 
One's resistance to evil may become weaker 
and weaker. The struggle to human eyes may 
seem altogether to have ceased. One may drop 
below the point of making any contest against 
sin, below the point of appreciating Saint Paul's 
meditations. One may so habitually choose the 
evil and live in it, that there will be no more 
1 Romans vii. 21. 2 Hji^j. yii. 19. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 13 

than fitful and momentary thoughts of the good ; 
he may become hardened and rebellious, or ut- 
terly careless and indifferent. This is the aw- 
fulness of sin. " If the light that is in thee be 
darkness, how great is that darkness ! " ^ Thus 
is built up the highest barrier against the incom- 
ing of Christ into the heart. But it is not insur- 
mountable. The infinite God out of His infinite 
love has sent the Lord Jesus Christ "to seek 
and to save that which was lost."^ But we 
need fully to realize that every step away from 
the Christ counts one on the return. Every 
step downward means an added measure to the 
journey upward. And not only so, but with 
each downward step we acquire a momentum 
on the downward way. One step away from the 
Christ may mean many more before we can be 
recalled, and multiplied hardships on the re- 
turn. This is a fact of gravest importance. 
This makes each moment a precious moment 
and of supreme importance. It attaches to 
every passing hour all that splendid and aw- 
ful significance which current theology has at- 
tached only to one experience and one crisis 
in the life. 

1 Matthew vi. 23. ' 2 Luke xix. 10. 



14 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

The roots of sin, then, are in the moral make- 
up of man. Why he is morally made up as he 
is, is not here to be discussed. As a matter of 
fact man's splendid gift of freedom involves a 
great danger. We find it true that he has not 
faced the peril in safety. We find him weak 
and prone to err. We find his moral weakness 
a hindrance to the building up of his life into 
the Christlikeness. 

III. — The Antichrists op Society and 
THE Age. 

Now we consider the external phases of the 
hindrances of the Christ's helpful work in the 
life. What are the occasions of sin? 

This brings us into practical contact with our 
time. It leads us to look at the life of to-day, 
to note what is unfavorable to the promotion of 
Christian virtue, what circumstances favor the 
breeding of evil, and what invites the transgres- 
sion of the spiritual and moral law. 

The inquiry is of such proportions, and our 
space is so limited that we must sketch and con- 
dense, or make choice of some phase of the sub- 
ject and enlarge upon that. We shall find it more 
profitable to neglect the more obvious occasions 



' 



CHKIST IN THE LIFE. 15 

of transgression which are concerned with the 
grosser forms of sin. There is scarcely need 
to mention the nurseries of vice and crime, or to 
tell the appalling story of gross evil and wicked- 
ness fostered in centres where the vile and low 
are wont to congregate. It is enough to say 
that these horrible occasions of sin do exist; 
that once the will is weakened, once the pas- 
sions gain the mastery, once evil appetites are 
aroused, then one has to take but a step, and 
he will find surroundings which will minister to 
and foster all that is low and vile within him. 
These things are open to every one's view. 
Upon them we often dwell. Rather should our 
attention be called to less obvious, more subtle, 
yet scarcely less dangerous occasions of moral 
weakness. We are making the mistake in this 
age of observing the moral disease of man only 
at its height; we grow desperate over the last 
stages, and you will hear men crying out that 
some one great evil is the cause of all other 
evils ; we are less concerned about the thousand 
little things that make possible the great thing ; 
we are blind to the conditions that lead to the 
inception of the disease ; we treat the disease ; 
we neglect moral sanitation ; we treat the fever 



16 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

at its height, in its epidemic rage; we neglect 
the generally weakened condition of the people 
which made it possible for the disease to get 
its hold ; we do not take sufficient note of the 
thousand contributing causes which must he 
dealt with before the disease can be rooted out. 

Whatever the original cause (and that is per- 
haps beyond our ken), it is a fact that certain 
of the modern conditions and habits, certain of 
the phases of modern civilization, have in them 
the seeds of moral weakness ; under them with- 
out forethought and effort we are bound to be- 
come weakened, and at last must come into such 
condition that every shape of moral disease can 
fasten upon us. 

The commercial and industrial, the wealth- 
getting habit of the age is one of these phases. 
A larger proportion of man's energy is absorbed 
in these directions than ever before. It is an 
eminently materialistic age. The things of the 
spirit have less emphasis, the things of the 
earth have more emphasis, than makes a goodly 
proportion. Eeach out your hand indifferently 
to-day, and you will be more apt to touch some- 
thing that savors of the earth than something 
that savors of the spirit. The air is more 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 17 

saturated with materialistic than with spiritual 
substance. It is easier to hear and learn of the 
factory, of the farm, of stocks, bonds, ships, and 
trade, than of honor, virtue, and godliness. A 
great wheat-deal has a wider reach and more 
points of immediate contact with the life of the 
people than the discussion in the American 
Board of the most momentous spiritual problems. 
We breathe in with every breath the air of the 
shop and the counting-room ; only now and 
then comes a draught of the spirit from the 
Prophets and the Christ. Our young men grow 
up in the atmosphere of trade ; the thoughts 
and sentiments, the ambitions and desires, of the 
commercial world are their daily sustenance ; 
only now and then have they a taste of the true 
bread that cometh down from Heaven. Our 
young women grow up in secular surroundings ; 
their devotions are more easily and naturally 
turned to material things than to the culture 
of the spiritual life. The channels for the out- 
flow of the energy in secular directions open up 
on every hand, and are kept free and attractive; 
and into these channels goes hy far the larger pro^ 
portion of the splendid strength of the human soul. 
Another unpleasant sign of the secular and 

2 



18 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

unspiritual characteristic of the age appears in 
the devotion of the people to pure amusement. 
Hard work and energy-draining diversion are 
characteristic of the American people ; recrea- 
tion has come to be an added business. The 
man who in addition to his regular occupation 
meets all the demands of society must be very 
strong ; and if above meeting the demands of 
business and society he would meet his obliga- 
tions to the Church, he must be extraordinarily 
robust. The devotion of our people to pure 
diversion is a sign of the times. If our average 
village life may be taken as an epitome of the 
life of the people, there is a feverish desire on 
every hand for pure amusement. It is not recre- 
ation that is sought ; there is no relation of the 
diversion to health and strength. The indulgence 
is not temperate and helpful ; it indicates an un- 
balanced and thoughtless life. Amusement has 
become the secondary occupation of our people, 
having the first and chief claim after necessary 
labor; it uses up the winter evenings and the 
summer days. Surely the present style of life 
must sometime have an effect upon the char- 
acter of the people; can we not see the begin- 
nings already? It must gradually, unperceived 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 19 

at first, change the quality of the life ; it must 
have an effect upon the pliysical, upon the 
mental, upon the moral, and upon the spiritual 
fibre of man. Our young people tend to grow 
up with a passion for pure diversion. The 
serious duties of life are irksome, and are not 
undertaken with courage and a cheerful spirit. 
The home life suffers. Children are not educated 
in the home as they ought to be ; they are not 
under influences that tend to raise up sturdy, 
work-loving, burden-bearing men and women. 
We need not doubt that the coming generations 
will be good card-players, graceful dancers, 
patrons of amusement, and capable in every 
pastime ; but we have some reason to be anxious 
on the score of the strength, the force and 
quality of character of those who are subject to 
the prevailing influences of to-day. Are we 
producing a generation of sturdy, virtue-loving, 
wise, broad-minded, generous men and women, 
who will take up family cares with zest and 
courage, who will put strength of heart and 
soul and the vigor of strong nerves and a healthy 
organism and an enduring Christian purpose 
into the splendid opportunities that everywhere 
confront the humblest child of God? 



20 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

No word is here written against recreation. 
If space permitted, right here would be an essay- 
on recreation which would satisfy the most en- 
thusiastic lover of any legitimate pastime; but 
any sport, any amusement, any diversion ceases 
to be a recreation when it acts as a drain upon 
the energies, when it exhausts rather than re- 
stores, when it is pursued with passionate 
fondness and takes out of the life more than 
it puts in. 

This is a matter of more importance than 
many are ready to admit. We are swinging too 
far from Puritanism. Like the Puritans, we are 
overdoing, but in the opposite direction. They 
destroyed a part of life by striking out cheer- 
fulness: we are destroying a much more im- 
portant part of life by striking out seriousness. 
They were nobly equipped for the sterner tasks : 
we are splendidly caparisoned for the lighter 
pleasures. They frowned upon recreation and 
sport : we frown upon plodding earnestness 
and the spirit which takes a downright grip 
upon every serious problem and hardest task. 
The prevailing fondness for pastime and amuse- 
ment for their own sakes, and to fill up the 
hours so that earnestness shall not intrude, 



CHRIST IN THE LIEE. 21 

drains off the divine life, that is ever sent down 
from heaven to us. This current of life, rich and 
pure, comes continually from God. But at point 
after point in our careless and indifferent and 
worldly life it is conducted off, and dissipated, 
and in us becomes enfeebled. 

In these aspects of our civilization and life 
are presented very serious hindrances to the en- 
trance of Christ into the human heart ; in these 
shapes antichrist appears. They are the more 
dangerous because they are not connected with 
what is in itself wrong. Yet they do have a 
large and an important place in all that con- 
cerns the spiritual and moral welfare of our 
people. They are causes of degeneration. They 
need to be considered. In these dangers child- 
hood and youth are immersed. They are more 
serious because so little repulsive. They are 
more threatening because everywhere connected 
with respectability. They touch the life at every 
point. They are operative upon that large class 
of people who are independent and intelligent, 
sensible in the main, law-abiding, the rank and 
file, a substantial set, upon whom we look as the 
bulwark of society, the conservators of law, in 
whose hands is largely the future of our nation. 



22 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

Surely anything which endangers the Christian 
life of this class needs quick attention. For 
when this great body, which is our hope, degen- 
erates, when it drops down one grade, then in- 
deed is an injury done to the life of the people, 
and their welfare seriously endangered. 

Against the barriers set up by man's moral 
weakness and by the occasions of sin found in 
the circumstances of his life, the Christ has to 
work. The aim of Christian effort is to over- 
come these obstacles and bring Christ into the 
life. We proceed to consider, in the next five 
sections, the instrumentalities or means by 
which this work may be done. 

IV. — Helpful Instrumentalities. — The Bible. 

Roughly summed up, the means, or instrumen- 
talities, or helps toward the Christian life are 
the Bible, Meditation, Prayer, Family Worship, 
and the Church. 

We proceed to consider, in this section, the 
Bible, It is a potent means whereby the 
Christ may find entrance into the life. We 
need to use it. It is a chart of life. It gives 
knowledge of the greatest events and the grand- 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 23 

est men of the world's history. He who is 
familiar with the Bible, not verbally or with 
detached texts, but with the sweep of its his- 
tory, the progress and development of its life, the 
character of its greatest men, is possessed of an 
inexhaustible store, whence may be drawn all 
the riches of life. He who has learned to ap- 
preciate its poetry, to have an appetite for its 
wisdom, to sympathize with its loftiest spirit, to 
dwell admiringly and lovingly with men like 
Moses, like Isaiah, like John, like Paul, like the 
Christ, is feeding upon the meat that makes men 
godlike. The Bible contains a record of the 
highest aspirations, of the noblest thoughts, 
the sublimest sentiments. It tells the story of 
the strongest, purest life. It leads us into the 
presence of those who have held communion 
with God, opens to our view the life of Jesus the 
Christ. It contains the annals of the founding 
of the Church, the precious letters of apostolic 
instruction, and the sublime apocalypse of the 
triumph and glory of the Church. We must 
make the Bible our meat and drink. Nowhere 
else can we to such purpose and so bountifully 
supply our highest needs. The Bible is not first 
to be reverenced and then used. It is first to be 



24 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

used and then it must be reverenced. It is not 
to be made a fetich, an object of worship. It is 
an instrument, which the Divine order has placed 
within our reach. If we use it, we shall learn its 
worth, and love it as we love no other book. It 
is a book to be used not with the critic's skill 
and learning, — the order of the history of the 
pentateuch, the time of the prophets' writing 
make little difference to the searcher after 
spiritual food, — but with an honest purpose and 
an open heart ; a book to bring to our notice and 
to enlarge our power of seeing those sublime 
truths which are so easily missed in our ordi- 
nary life ; a book to awaken and develop those 
finer qualities of heart and soul, which become 
dulled in the busy turmoil and temptation of 
daily living ; a book to lead us into intimacy 
with souls who have been acquainted with the 
highest truth, who have been pure and holy, nay, 
who have walked with God ; and above all, into 
intimacy with the great Master of them all, the 
Lord Jesus Christ. 

V. — The Help of Meditation. 

Our reading of the Bible should be supple- 
mented with meditation. This is a means of 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 25 

bringing the Christian spirit into the heart. We 
need " The Still Hour." There are so many de- 
mands upon our intelligence, so many uses for 
the intellect, so many objects of thought, so 
much to fill the brain and keep it active, that 
there is little chance in these days for quiet 
meditation. If we desire it, it is hard to find 
the still hour. These other demands upon the 
thought are louder and more obtrusive. The 
whole outward machinery of our life is adapted 
to them. The routine of life does not provide 
for the meditative moment, for the blessed privi- 
lege of solitude, for the hour to be spent alone 
in the presence of the Highest. Once it was 
different. Long ago, the cloister was of chief 
importance in the religious life. Then there was 
too much solitude, too much introspection. The 
cloistered monks thinned out the life. They 
fell into vagaries and notions. They passed the 
bounds of sound mental and spiritual health. 
They shunned the active world, where they might 
have relieved the strain of their intense thought 
and tested and corrected the product of their 
meditative hours. For them it was all cloister 
and no world. Now it is all world and no clois- 
ter. There is no provision for the meditative 



26 CHRIST m THE LIFE. 

hour. Our churches are closed except for regu- 
lar worship ; our shops and marts of course ad- 
mit of no such thing, and even our homes are 
busy places. We have to make a special effort 
to find the opportunity. This we ought to do. 
We ought at times seriously to turn the current 
of our thought and feeling Christward and God- 
ward. " You have torn down the cloister, but 
why have you not erected it in your own hearts ? 
Lo, my brother, if thou wouldst seek out the still 
Tiour^ only a single one every day, and if thou 
wouldst meditate on the love which called thee 
into being, which hath overshadowed thee all the 
days of thy life, . . . this would be to draw near 
to thy God. Thus wouldst thou take Him by 
the hand." i 

VI. — The Value of Prayer. 

Another means for private or individual use 
in the culture of the Christian life is prayer. 

Prayer should be the natural outgrowth of Bi- 
ble reading and meditation. When our thoughts 
have been with Moses and the Prophets and the 
Christ, when we have been feeding upon the 
Psalms, or Isaiah, or the Sermon on the Mount, 
1 The Still Hour, by Austin Phelps, pp. 135, 136. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 27 

we ought to find ourselves in the mood for prayer. 
We shall wailt to follow those spiritually minded 
men up to the Father. Prayer is a means of en- 
riching, enlarging, and strengthening the life. 
Our Lord Himself depended upon prayer. He 
had moments of exhaustion, of depletion; and 
in those moments, and when He was passing 
through some special trial, and when He was 
undertaking some great work, He went to God 
in prayer. 

There is something exceedingly touching and 
something very instructive in Jesus' habit of pri- 
vate prayer. It is not ostentatious ; it is not for 
a spectacle ; it is not advertised. But we con- 
stantly find Him stealing quietly away from all 
companionship and seeking the company of God 
in prayer. After those exhausting days of teach- 
ing and healing, after the drain upon His life in 
the presence of multitudes, the flock without a 
shepherd, the loving, the curious, the scoffing, 
we find Him seeking the fresh breath of the 
mountain air, the loneliness of the wilderness, 
and there asking for the presence of God in His 
heart.^ He was praying at His baptism, when 
the heaven opened and the Spirit descended and 
1 Matthew xiv. 23 ; Luke v. 16 ; vi. 12. 



28 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

abode upon Him.^ He prayed before the call of 
the disciples.2 He went up into a mountain to 
pray, and was praying at the time of the trans- 
figuration and the renewal of the voice from 
heaven saying, " This is my Beloved Son." ^ He 
prayed before Lazarus was raised from the dead ; 
He prayed with His disciples when they were 
troubled at the darkness that seemed to be set- 
tling over them, and the danger that threatened 
their beloved Lord.^ He wrestled in prayer ; 
He groaned and prayed, and at last received 
strength and peace, all through the last days 
which culminated in the cross. 

We then must pray. We must reinforce our 
lives. Prayer enables us to receive Divine truth. 
It is our means of communicating with the Di- 
vine. Whatever other purpose it serves, the 
great value of prayer is that it keeps us close to 
God, and brings God into our hearts. We may 
ask for other things, — we may ask for material 
benefits, we may pray for the coming of the rain, 
for the staying of the flood, for the arrest of dis- 
ease; we may pray for the intercession of God, 
the staying of the calamity that impends ; and 

1 Luke iii. 21. 2 ibid. vi. 12. 

3 Ibid. ix. 28-35. * John xvii. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 29 

men who dwell near to God will continue to 
speak to Him of all their needs, and in simple 
fashion to express before Him every earnest de- 
sire : but in these lines, after all, we do not know 
whether in folly or in wisdom our prayer as- 
cends, We are very likely to ask amiss and to 
receive not. We must ask in His name, in His 
spirit. And surely His prayers were largely for 
the incoming of the Divine spirit into His soul. 
When we seek God for the sake of finding Him^ 
for the sake of receiving His life, then we can- 
not be asking amiss, and we must receive. It is 
best, like Solomon, not to ask for ourselves long 
lives, or riches, or the lives of our enemies, but 
for a wise and an understanding heart.^ We 
must seek for ourselves first the kingdom of 
God and His righteousness, and let all other 
things be added in their proper time and order.^ 
Asking this, we shall surely receive. Seeking 
this, we shall surely find. 

Prayer is the hallowed and sacred coming in- 
to the Divine presence, asking of God that He 
bestow His spirit upon us. It is based on the 
belief that there is store of spiritual reality and 
of truth and of all wisdom and love in the 

1 1 Kings iii. 5-14. 2 Matthew vii. 33. 



30- CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

Divine heart. It is our humble and reverential 
and earnest petition for the renewing of our 
hearts. In our hours of depletion, when we are 
weary and exhausted, when we feel that strength 
and life have gone out of us, we need, like our 
Lord and Master, to go apart and pray. We 
need the constant inflow of the Divine spirit, 
the constant presence of God. We need the 
Divine strength. We need to be fed from on 
high ; and prayer out of earnest hearts will 
surely bring God into our lives. It will surely 
renew us for our labor, and give into our hearts 
the Divine patience and the Divine wisdom. It 
will surely enlarge our faith and awaken our 
love ; it will enable us to follow our Lord, to walk 
as He walked, and to be blessed as He was blessed, 
in sorrow, in temptation, or in toil. 

The Bible, meditation, and prayer are means 
to the great end we have in consideration ; 
namely, the attainment of the Christian life. 
These means belong more especially to the in- 
dividual life, or have been considered in that 
relation. They are for one's private use in the 
hours devoted to the building up of the charac- 
ter into Christian grace and strength. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 31 

VII. — The Aid of Family Worship. 

But there are other relations than those be- 
tween each indiyidual and his God. The soli- 
tary are set together in families. The family is 
a Divine institution. It is evident that God de- 
signed the family to be a centre of pure life. It 
may become the source of untold blessing. Noth- 
ing is more important than to make the home a 
training-school for life. There should be instilled 
every virtue ; there the young should be brought 
up to reverence God, to be noble, to be manly 
and womanly, to be generous and kind, to be 
brave and true, to love honor, to have respect to 
righteousness. Private Bible-reading and medi- 
tation and prayer do not meet all the require- 
ments of the Christian life. The home furnishes 
an added opportunity, and makes a new obliga- 
tion. There is no quicker, surer, more constant 
means of helpfully reaching the life than through 
the sacred relations of the home. Christian fa- 
thers and mothers ought to be able to rear Chris- 
tian children. If they do not, they are held 
responsible, not for every failure in result, for 
sometimes there may be excuse, but for every neg- 
lect, for silence upon the great themes of life, for 



32 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

indifference with regard to the moral welfare of 
children, for neglecting to mention Christ, and 
omitting to bring the children to an apprecia- 
tion of the Christlike life. There should be a 
wholesome Christian atmosphere in every home. 
There should be some themes of conversation be- 
side those that concern trade, dress, amusements, 
accidents, crimes, and the happenings of the day. 
We cannot expect strong moral and spiritual life 
if there is no more bracing air than that in the 
home. Children are growing up without de- 
cided home influence. The home is too much 
a lodging-place and dining-room ; it is too little 
the holy .of holies of a loving group joined heart 
to heart in deep affection for the purpose of the 
highest and strongest life. 

Christ and God should be systematically 
sought in the home. It is to be feared that they 
are systematically neglected. The strong ten- 
dency, for two generations at least, has been to 
neglect family worship, — to throw down the 
home altars. As a means of fostering the Chris- 
tian life the home altar has a place hardly sec- 
ond to the altar of the sanctuary. We have too 
much banished the Christ from home life. We 
have come to think that His name is to be seri- 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 33 

ously heard only at church, or in the Sunday- 
school, or at the conference meeting. Parents 
no doubt respect religion, and think that their 
children should learn something of Christian 
truth j for the Sunday-schools are filled. But 
they are inclined to put the responsibility of all 
religious instruction and spiritual guidance, and 
it might almost be said of moral influence, upon 
the church and Sunday-school. Pains are not 
taken to make the home the centre of religious 
life. This applies to no particular denomina- 
tion ; it is characteristic of the time. It is a 
woful mistake. We cannot afford to neglect or 
to forget the Christ six days in the week. We 
cannot rightly trust our children to develop in 
Christian character under the influence of two 
hours' Sabbath instruction, one half of which is 
ordinarily beyond their understanding, and the 
other half liable to be the merest formality of 
question and answer. The father or mother 
who expects the child to grow up — or to be built 
up, as the splendid New-Testament expression is 
— under the influence of the church service and 
Sunday-school alone, lacks intelligence, or com- 
mon-sense, or conscience. Such parents are, 
to say the least, very heedless ; and such heed- 

3 



34 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

lessness ouches the point of criminal neglect. 
Make use, parents and guardians of families, of 
the home influence, as a means of cultivating the 
Christian life. Begin the day with a common 
thought of God ; have family prayers ; avoid 
formalism ; put no premium on piety, of the type 
that touches only the outside of life. Make the 
worship healthful, wholesome, cheerful ; make it 
have some concern with the daily walk and con- 
versation. It should be simple, sincere, and 
brief. Some part of the Scripture should be 
read. Some good thought from another source 
is not out of place ; in homes where the spirit 
of song is, a hymn may be added, and a prayer 
should be said. Once, at least, each day should 
the family be united in such service. We have, 
perhaps, some natural timidity to overcome, 
some old prejudices to break down ; but for the 
sake of themselves, for the sake of their chil- 
dren, for the sake of coming generations, par- 
ents must take the Christian training of chil- 
dren into their own hands; they must build 
altars in their homes to the good Father, and 
bring the household into the Divine presence 
every day. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 35 



VIII. — The Church the Great Help. 

There is yet one other means, — the chief and 
greatest instrumentality in helping to the Chris- 
tian life, — namely, the Church. 

"Whatever of attainment is possible without 
the Church, the full development of the Christ 
life can only come with the Church. Our 
brotherhood extends beyond the limits of blood- 
relationship. " He hath made of one blood all 
nations of men for to dwell on all the face of 
the earth." ^ Sacred as is the home, sacred as 
are the ties of kindred, there is the greater fam- 
ily, — the one family under the fatherhood of 
God and the brotherhood of man. 

No human life can be perfect in isolation. In 
the great household of God there must be that 
centre of Christian influence and life, that union 
of Christian believers, called the Church. Under 
the Divine law, indeed by the Divine creation, we 
belong one to another ; and if we try to be Chris- 
tians belonging only each to himself and indi- 
vidually to God, we must fail. One who holds 
himself apart from that great means of life and 

1 Acts xvii. 26. 



36 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

work, the organic union of all believers in Christ, 
is neglecting one of the divinely appointed ways 
whereby his own life may be enriched, and de- 
spising his opportunity to bestow upon others 
the gifts that Christ has given to men. 

The Church serves the end of bringing the 
Christ into the life in a fourfold way : — 

1. It invites us to a common worship. There 
is much in this. We have spoken of private 
worship. We need also to worship together. 
We need the help of the union of spirit with 
spirit, the joining of soul with soul in common 
aspirations and purposes. Our common worship 
reminds us of the fatherhood of God, and that we 
belong in His household. There is a power in 
the thought and desire of millions unitedly up- 
lifted to God. There is a potent effect in one's 
presence in the little assemblies which make the 
units of the mighty whole. " Where two or 
three are gathered together in my name, there 
am I in the midst of them." ^ As the small as- 
semblies feel themselves united in the strength 
of God, and are knit together to make the mighty 
aggregate, and worship the same Father in unity 
of spirit, then the life-blood of the Christ flows 

1 Matthew xviii. 20. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 37 

rich and free through the many members of the 
great body. One who separates himself and 
tries to live a solitary Christian takes himself 
away from this strong current of spiritual life. 
Common worship, worship in union and in uni- 
son, calls down abundant blessings and brings 
the Christ richly into the heart. 

2. The Church not only provides for a com- 
mon worship, but also for Christian teaching in 
the spoken word. It has something for the emo- 
tions and sentiments ; it provides also for the 
common study of the Divine truth. We are 
better fitted for Christian living by this teaching. 
It is profitable to take unitedly into our thought 
the problems of life, and together to seek light. 
The constant and systematic application of 
Christian principles to all the questions of life 
is secured through the Church. This is a mat- 
ter of no small moment. That it has an effect 
cannot be doubted. For the virtues to be dwelt 
upon, truth to be praised. Christian love urged, 
the life and teachings of Jesus gone over again 
and again, each time in fresh applications, each 
time in relation to different needs and circum- 
stances, is surely a means of cultivating the 
Christian life. The spoken word could not be 



38 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

spared. It is a means of keeping our thought 
fresh, Christ with us, and our hearts warm and 
true. 

3. The Church further brings the Christ into 
our lives through the sacrame7its. 

Baptism is the seal of belief and the symbol 
of renewal ; it is the solemn consecration of the 
life in the Christian faith ; it is the sign of our 
entrance into a covenant with God ; it is the 
visible writing down of our pledge to follow 
faithfully after the Christ; it indicates and in 
symbol foreshadows the great work that the 
Christ is to do for us ; it points forward to the 
utter cleansing of the life. Having received 
the rite, we have made a solemn promise to our 
Father. In the case of children the promise is 
made for them in hope, and when they come to 
years of discretion and intelligence they are in- 
vited to ratify the promise and make it for them- 
selves. We have entered into the company of 
others who have made the same promise, and 
placed ourselves as near as possible to our Sav- 
iour and our God. We have taken our stand 
where all surroundings are most favorable for 
our growth in Christian character. 

The sacrament of the Lord's Supper is another 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 39 

help offered by the Church. This calls us into 
the Christ's presence. It removes the vast sep- 
aration of years that lie between us and the life 
of our Lord. It is the symbol of the feeding 
and nurture of the soul upon the Christ life. To 
eat His body and drink His blood, means, as He 
Himself indicates, to receive and inwardly to 
digest His truth.^ The Lord's Supper is the 
most sacred memorial of the Christ. Coming to 
the feast with a true conception of its meaning, 
with an appreciation of the privilege offered, 
prepared by earnest thought and devotion, there 
is a blessing in this sacrament which brings us 
very near to our Lord, and makes us feel that He 
has come and dwelt within our hearts. 

4. Again, the Church helps us by its invitation 
to a common service. It takes us out to a com- 
mon work, makes us " laborers together witli 
God." Not till it has called out our strength in 
some united effort for the good of men has the 
Church provided all its ways for helping the 
Christian life. Nothing is so stimulating and 
helpful as to join hands for some great and good 
work. The more it involves earnest effort and 
the bestowal of Christian love, the better its 

1 John vi. 54, 63. 



40 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

effect upon the workers. By a common service 
is meant not every trivial work that is done 
under church auspices, but only such as have the 
true Christian quality, that involve real Chris- 
tian effort, — works of benevolence, of church 
extension, of reform. If the Church offered no 
common objects of work to her people, if conse- 
crated energies could not be centred upon com- 
mon ends, it would soon fall into inactivity and 
pass on to disintegration. Work is in large 
measure the promoter of vigor and health. The 
working church is the living church. The grand 
service to which an active church invites her 
people is a constant inspiration and source of 
life. The earnest effort reacts upon the toiler. 
None is so well prepared to work to-morrow as 
he who has worked to-day. None has in him in 
such full measure the spirit of labor as he who 
is earnestly at the task. The common service to 
which the Church invites its members is a source 
of life. It purifies and strengthens the soul. 

Such are the means or instrumentalities by 
which the Christian life may be cultivated. We 
may make use of the Bible, of meditation, of 
prayer, of home training and family devotion. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 41 

and of the Church, helping us by its common 
worship, its spoken word, the sacraments, and 
its common work. It is not for any one to 
make a choice of these means, but for every one 
to use them all. They are indissoluble parts of 
one solid whole. They cannot be rightly sepa- 
rated. You cannot choose between them, any 
more than you can choose by which rail, the 
right hand or the left, you will make your jour- 
ney across the continent, or whether you will 
use the steam-boiler or the propeller in your trip 
across the Atlantic. There is vast need of more 
consolidated and coherent effort all along the 
line ; there is need that we realize that the high- 
est ends cannot be attained till we appreciate and 
use the grand system of means that is placed in 
our hands. 

IX. — Our Contact with the Christ. 

We have seen that the Christ is; we know 
that He ought to be in the life, and have men- 
tioned some of the reasons why He is not there, 
and have considered some of the means by which 
He may enrich our lives. Assuming that we 
have used those means, and that the Christ is 
beginning to have some hold upon us, we inquire 



42 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

now as to the process of Christ's work, and to 
this inquiry devote sections nine and ten. 

We assume that there has been that recogni- 
tion of evil in the life which is called conviction ; 
that turning away of the thought and life from 
evil ways, from indifference and disobedience, 
which is repentance ; that surrender of one's self 
to the new idea and way, which is conversion ; 
that consciousness that a new spirit has found 
lodgment and abiding-place in the life, which is 
the new lirth^ — these experiences are assumed, 
and we ask as to the process of the Christ's 
work on and within the heart. 

This is a practical question, because the Chris- 
tian experience has often had an air of mystery 
and remoteness. It has come to be a common 
thought that it is something altogether dis- 
sociated from life, having little to do with the 
here and now, but possibly a very important af- 
fair in the hereafter. The experience has been 
taken unnecessarily out of the grasp of the 
understanding. The humanities of it have not 
been sufficiently emphasized. It has been made 
to have an air of unnaturalness. While it is 
natural and explicable under the well-known 
and great laws of life, it has been set off by 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 43 

itself and made strange. An inquiry into the 
facts, then, is in place. 

Jesus describes Himself and His work under 
various differing figures of speech. Combined 
they give us the complete notion of Himself and 
His work. He speaks of Himself as our " ex- 
ample," as our " leader," as a Saviour, as a judge. 
He describes Himself as " the bread of life," as 
" the water of life," as "the corner-stone," as "the 
way and the truth and the life ; " calls Himself 
" the light of the world." He represents Him- 
self under the figure of " the Vine ; " calls Himself 
" the door " by which His sheep may go in and 
out and find pasture, and also "the shepherd," 
" the good shepherd who giveth his life for the 
sheep." Some of these descriptions present 
Christ as standing outside our lives and leading 
us, and some as entering into our lives and feed- 
ing us. The Apostles also speak of Jesus' life 
and work in terms not uniform. Saint Paul 
exhorts that the same " mind " ^ be in the Phi- 
lippian disciples that was in Christ. The writer 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews calls Jesus " the 
author and finisher of our faith." ^ Saint Peter 
says that He left an "example"^ that the brethren 

1 Philippians ii. 5. 2 Hebrews xii. 2. ^ 1 Peter ii. 21. 



44 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

should follow His steps. Saint Paul calls Jesus 
the ^' one mediator between God and men." ^ 
He speaks of the law of the spirit of life in 
Him which frees us from the law of sin and 
death.2 He says that in Him we have redemp- 
tion through His blood.^ Saint John says that 
His blood cleanseth from all sin, " if we walk 
in the light as He is in the light." * Helpful 
suggestions as to the process of Jesus' work are 
to be found in Jesus' exhortation, '' Abide in 
me and I in you;" ^ and in Saint Paul's saying 
that the baptized have " put on Christ," ^ and 
the seemingly contradictory words in the same 
epistle, Christ is " formed within you ; " ^ and 
in his statement that we are called into fellow- 
ship with Christ,^ and that we are " strengthened 
with might by His spirit in the inner man." ^ 

It must be confessed that from these words of 
Christ and the Apostles one gets no very clear 
idea as to method or process. They seem them- 
selves to have made no special effort to explain. 
They did not enter into any psychologic discus- 
sion. They give us no metaphysics. They use 

1 1 Timothy ii. 5. ^ Romans viii. 2. ^ Ephesians i. 7. 
4 1 John i. 7. ^ John xv. 4. ^ Galatians iii. 27. 

7 Ibid. iv. 19. ^ 1 Corinthians i. 9. ^ Ephesians iii. 16. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 45 

such figures as serve on each particular occasion 
the special purpose of that time. But such pas- 
sages as have been cited and the whole New 
Testament history indicate this fact : that the 
Christ worked upon and within the lives of the 
.disciples by personal contact of spirit witl^ spirit, 
life with life, under the same law and by the 
same processes that govern to-day the influence 
of one life over another. How strange it is, this 
influence of life upon life ! What wonderful 
power spirit has upon spirit I What strange 
contact of soul with soul, with what wonderful 
results, we are witnessing all the time ! When 
we know the process that communicates the bra- 
very of a great captain to the men in the ranks, 
or that subdues to the sway of a great intellect 
thousands of followers, or sends the sentiments 
of one great heart thrilling through multitudes, 
then we shall know the process by which the 
Christ works in our lives. Somehow, we know 
not how, spirit and life pass from heart to heart, 
from soul to soul. Somehow one great master 
mind may enter into and mould other minds. 
One generous heart may fill and warm a thou- 
sand others. We may say that it is a mystery, 
just as the process of the transfer of sunshine 



46 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

and soil into the living blade of grass is a mys- 
tery ; but it is a most palpable fact. 

Was not the great Saint Bernard communicat- 
ing himself to the great multitudes that waited 
upon his words ? Were not the hearers who 
flocked to him from all over Europe receiving 
himself into their lives ? Did he not become a 
part of them ? His remarkable intellect, his 
simple and sincere piety, his marvellous wisdom 
were imparted to them. He was in contact with 
many : the common people heard him in crowds. 
He was counsellor of kings and nobles, bishops 
and popes. He ruled Europe by the power of 
his spirit. That he entered into the hearts of 
others and gave them his spirit, let the one hun- 
dred and sixty populous monasteries formed 
after his suggestion testify, let the crusade in- 
stigated by him bear witness, let the potentates 
and people of Europe who bowed before him de- 
clare. His glowing spirit, his passionate ear- 
nestness found its way into other lives. 

When King Henry of Navarre rode up and 
down the lines before the battle of Ivry giving 
words of encouragement to his soldiers, assuring 
them that he would either conquer or die, did he 
not impart something of himself to the waiting 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 47 

army ? " If my standard fail you," said he, 
" keep my plume in sight. You will always see 
it in the face of glory and honor." Was not the 
king living within that army ? Was not he him- 
self, his courage, his purpose, his very life, com- 
municated to them ? The three white plumes of 
his helmet seen everywhere in the thickest of 
the fight carried his own valor^ and spirit into 
his hosts. Those soldiers trusted him ; they had 
faith in him. He had faith in them and trusted 
them. He was in them and they in him. One 
life can and does fill other lives. One intellect 
can transform other intellects. One heart can 
kindle sentiment in other hearts. There is vital 
union between person and person. A leader, be 
he theologian, or statesman, or warrior, or phi- 
lanthropist, or reformer, reproduces himself in 
his followers. It is a law of the human soul 
that it can be mightily moved by some other 
soul. Under that law we live, and move, and 
have our being. We are ever feeling the power 
of some other over us, or our power over some 
other. 

Under this law, whose operation is so familiar 
a fact, the Christ enters into our lives. The 
spirit that lives in him is the Divine spirit. " I 



48 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

and my Father are one," ^ He says ; " I am in 
the Father and the Father in me." ^ That spirit 
which is in Him enters into His discijDles ; it 
fills and controls them ; it rules and sways their 
lives. The New Testament picture of apostolic 
discipleship is a grand picture of lives utterly 
possessed with the spirit of the Christ. The 
Christ is in them ; His purposes are in them ; 
His motives are in them ; His life is in them. 
"Nevertheless not I live, but Christ liveth in 
me," ^ exclaims Saint Paul. Those men had 
Christ in their hearts. He led them and com- 
manded them from within, and sent them forth in 
the power of His spirit to do His work. In the 
same way the spirit of the Christ may work in 
all men. His spirit touches our spirit. When 
John Wesley had been preaching for some years 
he was reconverted, or as he thought for the first 
time really converted, to Christ. It put new 
life into him ; it awakened every latent power. 
It sent him forth on that splendid career of con- 
secrated and successful effort which brought 
forth such abundant fruit, and entitles him to be 
enrolled among the holy men of God who have 
turned the currents of the world's life. The 

1 John X. 80, 2 John xiv. 10. 3 Galatians li. 20. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 49 

Christ-spirit came to him at that time in larger 
measure ; it filled full his soul ; he was a new 
man in Christ. He too might say, " Neverthe- 
less not I live, but Christ liveth in me." 

We stand in awe before the complete posses- 
sion of the human soul by the spirit of the 
Christ. This utter giving up of tlie life to an- 
other life, and that the life of God as it is in 
Christ, is a fact of sublime meaning and impor- 
tance. But the process is just as simple and 
natural as the way in which the life of a beloved 
friend finds its way into one's heart. We are 
kindred spirits with the Christ; we are made in 
the Divine image. We are sons of God, way- 
ward it is true, strayed away, and needing 
through Christ to be adopted again into the 
home,^ and yet always related to God as children, 
and to Christ as our elder brother. If we were 
not divinely created, Christ could not come near 
us. If we were of some other order, Christ could 
not enter our lives. If there be mystery about 
this relation of the Christ with us, it is the 
same mystery that attaches to the relation of 
your life with the life of your dear friend. It is 
not a mystery belonging to the Clirist and reli- 

1 See " Manuals of Faith and Duty," No. 1, sec. v. 

4 



50 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

gion, not a mystery that sets Him afar off and 
separates religion from the understanding, but a 
mystery that belongs to life itsQlf, and one that 
we face every day. As your beloved friend finds 
a way into your heart, and has the power to give 
you his spirit ; so you may come under the spell 
of the Christ, and find Him filling all your life. 
You .are filled with His motive ; His purposes 
are your purposes ; His spirit is your spirit. 
You cherish and obey Him ; you follow Him 
into all the battle of life; you make struggle 
with Him against all selfishness and sin ; you 
share His divine enthusiasm ; you enter into all 
that life of love and good-will, of personal purity 
and righteousness, which means your redemp- 
tion and the redemption of the world. He is all 
in all to you; you do not live, but the Christ 
lives in you. 

X. — Christian Growth. 

But we may gather from New Testament 
teachings something further and more definite 
with regard to the process of Christ's work. 

Sometimes the Christian experience stops with 
the awakening of the emotions. Christ comes 
and fills the heart, but for the moment only. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 51 

His spirit enters a multitude under some special 
stress, and thrills them with ecstasy. But the 
splendid inflow of feeling dies away with the 
occasion. It is as though the hosts of King 
Henry, having won the battle of Ivry, and lost 
sight of their beloved commander for a time, 
should have melted away and become unavail- 
able for the contests that remained. But this is 
not New Testament Christianity ; this is not the 
Pauline idea of the Christian life. There must 
be something besides the momentary presence of 
the Christ with us. He must not only enter our 
lives, but He must remain there ; He must be- 
come assimilated, a part of our very selves. It 
is a pleasure to eat, and having eaten properly, 
and being in health, there is a certain satisfac- 
tion attending the fact of an appeased hunger. 
But this pleasure is one of the least of the bene- 
fits of eating. It is the digestion of the food, its 
entrance into the blood, and through the blood 
into the life, — into all the avenues of activity, 
promoting health, giving power, and securing 
growth, -r- that does the real and abiding good. 
So it is a pleasure to be deeply moved by the 
presence of the Christ-spirit. Such emotions 
give us the highest joy. There is no higher 



62 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

pleasure than to feel the sway and power of 
some grand thought, or to be under the spell of 
some exalted feeling. But this, after all, is the 
least of the benefits of the coming of the Christ 
into the life. Many Christians, however, are 
satisfied with an experience which does not pass 
this bound. They have the exquisite joy of 
emotional Christianity, but they have no diges- 
tive power. There is no assimilation, no growth, 
no appearance of new health ; there is no change, 
no development in character. And such experi- 
ence, such imperfect and inconsistent living, has 
in the minds of hard-headed and reasoning peo- 
ple brought the Christian life into disrepute. 
But this is not the Christian life ; and this habit 
is the habit of one who has not in him health of 
soul. It is the habit of one who lives to eat, and 
not of one who eats to live ; the habit of one who 
enters into the Christian experience only for the 
sake of those moments of emotional joy, and not 
for the sake of reforming his character into the 
likeness of the Christ. 

The real Christian experience carries us be- 
yond these high tides of the spirit. There must 
be not only a partaking of Christ, but also 
growth in Christ. This is plainly indicated in 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 53 

the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles. The 
strongest, clearest, and most emphatic words of 
Jesus either declare or imply that the Christian 
character is a growth. The parable of the sower 
represents the word and the truth of God in 
Christ as a seed which is cast into the ground, 
which is to spring up, and grow, and bear fruit. 
He compares the advancement of the kingdom 
of God to the bringing forth of fruit from the 
earth, — " first the blade, then the ear, after that 
the full corn in the ear." ^ He speaks of himself 
as the vine, of the disciples as the branches,^ 
bringing to our minds at once the idea of a 
living, organic, growth-producing union between 
Christ and the disciples. His life was in them. 
They were living, and thriving, and bearing fruit. 
Again He uses an emphatic figure of a different 
kind, but conveying the same thought. He com- 
mands His disciples to eat His flesh and drink 
His blood.^ He declares Himself to be "the 
true bread that cometh down from heaven," and 
says, " He that eateth me, even he shall live by 
me."^ If these figures do not directly imply 
that we are to take the Christ-spirit into our 

1 Mark iv. 28. 2 John xv. 5. 

3 Ibid. vi. 63. * Ibid. vi. 57. 



54 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

lives, and digest it, and grow upon it, then they 
have no meaning at all. Saint Paul very strongly 
conveys the same thought. He uses both the 
figure of building and that of growing. He 
speaks of God's work through Christ as the per- 
fecting of the saints^ (even the saints have to 
be perfected). He often uses the word ''edify," 
which means " building up," and gives us the 
idea of a process by which, strength added to 
strength, after a time every man is presented 
perfect in Christ Jesus.^ He exhorts the dis- 
ciples to grow up into Him in all things, who 
is the head, even Christ.^ 

Christ, then, must not only enter into the 
heart and fill it with splendid sentiment; He 
must remain there and feed the moral life. 
He must be a constant influence upon the char- 
acter. Any one can enjoy the Christ for an 
hour. It is comparatively easy to have our 
hearts stirred on a Sunday by some fervid 
word. Most of us are more or less uplifted 
by the customary forms of the religious service. 
But we have gone only a little way in the reli- 
gious experience, if this is all. We must feed 
upon Christ. We must find Him giving us 

1 Ephesians iv. 12. ^ Colossians i. 28. ^ Ephesians iv. 15. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 55 

strength. We must see that His spirit is be- 
coming our own. We must feel the glow of 
health, of spiritual health, and know that we 
are acquiring moral vigor. We must find in 
ourselves some greater power to resist evil, 
some stronger inclination to do good. We must 
make measurable gains in virtue and purity, 
in zeal and unselfishness. Can we think that 
Saint Paul would call any one a good Christian 
who went on year after year suffering from the 
very same faults and failings ? Could it be justly 
said that one was growing up into Christ who 
is just as impatient, just as indifferent, just as 
selfish now as he was five, ten years ago ? The 
Christians who really exemplify the Christian 
experience are those whose hearts and minds 
feed upon Christ, who in all things are enriched 
by Him,^ who are created in Christ Jesus unto 
good works,^ who, as the years go by, grow 
more Christlike, more saintly, more pure, more 
strong. 

XI. — Results in the Individual. 

We consider, next, the results of Christ's work 
in the life. Perhaps we have trespassed slightly 

1 1 Corinthians i. 6. 2 Ephesians ii. 10. 



66 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

upon this ground already, and may seem to have 
more or less to do with results, in the remainder 
of the book. But each section has a distinct 
purpose, and the endeavor will be to make each 
one serve its special end. 

The results of the Christ's work appear in 
the individual, in society, and in the creation 
of God. They are found along the lines that 
radiate from the Christ's character. " We shall 
be like Him." ^ We may, then, briefly contem- 
plate the Christ, and estimate, so far as is in our 
power. His moral and spiritual worth. 

It is difficult for the human understanding 
justly to estimate Him, or rightly to describe 
His character. One undertaking the task seems 
all the time to be treading on hallowed ground. 
While he is making the description in human 
terms, there is something that seems beyond the 
reach of man-made words. When one thinks 
he has grasped in some right way the true con- 
ception of the Christ, and duly appreciated His 
worth, there comes a thought of insufficiency, a 
solemn impression that one is trying to fathom 
divinity itself. To contemplate the Christ in 
His moral and spiritual grandeur is to be lifted 

1 1 John iii. 2. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 67 

up above the earth, above all ordinary life, and 
to feel the overshadowing of the divine. Hence 
the difficulty of putting into human terms all 
that He is. We say that He is type of the 
highest manhood, — that He is humanity itself 
at its height, perfect and complete. He is, as 
He most often calls Himself, the " Son of man," 
the perfection of human virtue and grace, en- 
shrined in our hearts as our Elder Brother, our 
ideal of human excellence. 

And yet this is not enough. This does not 
compass Jesus the Christ. We feel that there 
is more in His life and character than we have 
yet told, more than can be measured by these 
words. There is in Him a spirit and a power 
which cannot be brought down to the level of 
the highest flights of the human imagination. 
We cannot fully describe Him in terms of hu- 
man quality and character. In His presence 
we rise above the line that marks the limits of 
man's aspirations and of the loftiest human 
love. We are like one looking into the firma- 
ment. There is a vision of glory and majesty 
that transcends the grandest scenes of the earth. 
We are looking out upon the borders and into 
the depths of the universe itself. A profound 



58 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

awe, a sense of the infinite extent, the unknown 
depths and heights of the material creation, pos- 
sesses us, such as no Alpine grandeur can in- 
spire. We are brought by that upward look 
into a new relation with the creation of God- 
So it is with the Christ, the Son of man ; when 
we look earnestly upon His life, we are looking 
up into the heavens. We are in a new presence. 
We are looking into the divine depths. Noth- 
ing that our earthly outlook has revealed gives 
us the same sense of greatness. Nothing so im- 
presses us with the feeling of the glory and the 
beauty and the grandeur of life. Nothing so takes 
our thought and imagination out into a region of 
infinite expanse, where is the very essence of 
goodness and love. The Christ carries us out 
of ourselves. He gives the vision of the Divine. 
In His presence we are brought into a new 
relation with the spiritual creation of God, 
with spiritual life, with all morality and truth, 
with all righteousness and love. We are led 
up to the Father, and compelled to say, " This 
is His beloved Son ; this is the Son of 
God." 

In Christ is the perfect interblending of the 
human and the Divine. He stands at the sum- 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 69 

mit of human life, and in Him we are lifted up 
to God. 

Christ's work upon and within the human 
heart bestows and develops those qualities of 
life which so impress us in Jesus Himself. The 
man in whose heart the Christ is, is beginning 
to approach the ideal of human excellence. 
There is beginning to be in his soul the inter- 
blending of the human and the Divine. There 
is something in the Christian life, as in the life 
of our Lord Himself, that lifts us above the 
earth, above ourselves, and makes us more sure 
of God Himself. Every one who heroically and 
steadfastly obeys the moral law feeds our faith. 
Every unselfish act affords us a glimpse into 
heaven. The final outcome of Christ in the life 
is the man grown into the perfect likeness of 
Christ. "Whom we preach," says Saint Paul, 
"warning every man, and teaching every man 
in all wisdom ; that we may present every man 
perfect in Christ Jesus." ^ " We shall be like 
Him," 2 says Saint John ; and again Saint Paul, 
" We all, with open face beholding as in a glass 
the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same 
image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit 

1 Colossians i. 28. 2 i John iii. 2. 



60 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

of the Lord." ^ " Christ," he says, is " unto us 
wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, 
and redemption;"^ " Christ in you" is "the hope 
of glory." ^ Jesus defines this glory: "Herein is 
my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit;" * 
and Saint Paul leaves us no doubt as to the na- 
ture of the expected fruit: "The fruit of the 
spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and 
truth." ^ The most glorious and sublime teaching 
of all on this point is in the prayer of Jesus 
spoken for the help of the disciples in view of 
their great trial so soon to come. He prayed 
for the very same oneness between Himself and 
His present and future disciples as existed be- 
tween Himself and God : " I in them and thou 
in me, that they may be made perfect in one ; " ^ 
and says that the glory which God had given 
to Him, He has given to those that believe on 
His name, " that they may be one," even as He 
and the Father are one. This is the consum- 
mation of Christ's work in the heart. It is the 
man made new in Christ and brought into 
Christlike oneness with God. 

1 2 Corinthians iii. 18. 2 i Corinthians i. 80. 

3 Colossians i. 27. * John xv. 8. 

6 Ephesians v 9. 6 John xvii. 22, 23. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 61 

Regarded by itself, this result may seem like 
something far removed. It may seem impalpa- 
ble and in the clouds. We do indeed need to 
be careful lest we become lost in exalted thought 
up in a distant region of ideal grace and virtue 
and glory. We must follow Jesus and the Apos- 
tles, and make the work of Christ most present 
and tangible and real. To those who heard the 
Christ's words, who received His ministry of 
love, or listened to His denunciations of wrong, 
there was nothing sublimated or impractical 
about Him. We must not depart from His 
simplicity. We must not be content with rhap- 
sodies over His greatness. When Jesus said, 
" All things whatsoever ye would that men 
should do to you, do ye even so to them ; " ^ 
when in the course of that grand discourse on 
the judgment He said, "Inasmuch as ye have 
done it unto one of the least of these my breth- 
ren, ye have done it unto me ; " ^ when He said, 
" Whosoever shall give unto one of these little 
ones a cup of cold water only in the name of 
a disciple ... he shall in no wise lose his re- 
ward ; " ^ again, when He prayed for His dis- 

1 Matthew vii. 12. 2 ibid. xxv. 40. 

8 Ibid. X. 42. 



62 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

ciples, that they should not be taken out of the 
world but kept from the evil, and that they might 
be made holy through God's truth,i then surely 
there was nothing distant or obscure or out of 
reach about His words. We must not become 
lost in the glory of the final outcome, but must 
be attentive to the simple results of faithfulness 
along these practical lines, as they appear in the 
daily progress of the growing Christian. 

The result of the Christ's work in the indi- 
vidual heart is to make him obedient to God, 
loving, pure, and strong. We can make no 
statement stronger than Saint Paul's. In the 
midst of a most practical exhortation to the 
Ephesians, he announces the great object of 
the divine ministry in Christ, through apos- 
tles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, 
to be " for the perfecting of the saints, unto the 
work of ministering, unto the building up of 
the body of Christ : till we all attain unto the 
unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of 
the Son of God, unto a full-grown man^ unto 
the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
Christ r^ 

1 John xvii. 15, 19. 

2 Ephesians iv. 12, 13. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 63 

XII. — Results in Society. 

Then, further, the results of the Christ's work 
appear in the social organism. The common 
saying that corporations have no souls indicates 
a Christian work remaining undone. Not till 
the entire social organism has a soul will that 
work be complete. A renovated society, a di- 
vine order and life in the earth, was clearly in 
the minds of the prophets, as the vision of truth 
was unfolded to them. Jesus speaks constantly 
of the kingdom of God, and indicates its growth 
and maturity in the progress of the earthly gen- 
erations. In fact. He spoke chiefly of that king- 
dom in the earth. He describes its manner of 
growth, the hindrances it would meet, and its 
mighty extent at last.^ Saint John's ecstatic 
vision was of the New Jerusalem come down to 
earth. 

We cannot be satisfied with the state of soci- 
ety to-day. We can look back and see that 
there has been large advance along the lines of 
Christ's truth and life. Large and fair portions 
of the earth have been reclaimed from barba- 
rism. Despotism has wellnigh disappeared in 
1 See the parable of the Mustard seed, the Sower, etc. 



64 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

the Christian nations, slavery has been abolished, 
womanhood has been lifted out of degradation, 
and brutal warfare has steadily decreased. But 
when we take in at one view all the wrong and 
sin and injustice and brutality and selfishness 
that yet remain, our hearts almost fail us. But 
as results already have appeared, we have cause 
to hope and to take courage ; and as Christ is 
in our hearts, we must labor on. The second 
of the great commandments was not given for 
naught. " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
self " holds a world of meaning. The command 
has not been sufficiently obeyed. It does not 
mean that we shall, through neglect or indiffer- 
ence or ignorance, let our neighbor grow up in 
surroundings that corrupt him body and soul, 
and then at a late day for the sake of his ever- 
lasting welfare send an evangelist to convert him. 
It does not mean that we shall neglect the chil- 
dren that are growing up cultivated in vice and 
crime and educated in sin, and then, when sin 
has already conceived and brought forth death, 
use all the enginery of the church to drag these 
poor souls from the brink of an imaginary hell. 
It does not mean that we shall allow greed and 
selfishness to make the conditions of human life. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 65 

It does not mean that one and another shall feel 
secure in his individual salvation, and stand pas- 
sive, while thousands are morally ruined by 
corrupting circumstances within the control of 
the Christian's consecrated strength. It means, 
rather, that Christian spirit shall be thrown into 
the life of the social order, that Christian love 
shall be ever working its way into all the chan- 
nels of life and making itself actively felt. The 
Christian spirit should be the soul of reforms ; it 
should be making itself felt against every shape 
of moral disorder. It should be everywhere 
moulding life and making the conditions of life 
to its own will and liking. If the Christ-life is 
in any heart, that one must, like our Lord, be 
about the Father's work. He who claims to be 
a Christian and is indifferent to the welfare of 
his brother-men, has yet the greatest conquest 
of all to make, the conquest of self. He is far 
from salvation. " Not every one that saith unto 
me. Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 
heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father 
which is in heaven." ^ " And this is the Father's 
will, . . . that of all which He hath given me I 
should lose nothing, but should raise it up again 

1 Matthew vii. 21. 
5 - 



66 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

at the last day." ^ In the process of saving what 
God has given to Christ (and the Father hath 
given all things into His hands), ^ the Second Com- 
mandment plays an important part. There must 
come, through the Christian love of men one for 
another, a better order of life, a better society, 
more favorable to the culture of virtue, better 
adapted to produce the highest types of man- 
hood and womanhood, in which shall be the 
minimum of injustice and oppression and wrong, 
in which the Christian influence shall be a larger 
power, and all the conditions of living more 
favorable to Christian culture. Individualism is 
the dry rot of the Christian life. Each Chris- 
tian is not a whole, but a unit of a whole, — mem- 
bers in particular, but the body of Christ. " By 
one spirit are we all baptized into one body." ^ 
The strong tendency in Christianity has been to 
individualism. A reaction has come, and the 
touch of the Christ is now more firmly felt upon 
the general life of tlie day. 

The time must come when the world will be 
blessed with a society organized upon a Chris- 
tian basis. This is one of the necessary results 

1 John vi. 39. 2 ibid. iii. 35. 

3 1 Corinthians xii. 13, 20, 27. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 67 

of the indwelling of Christ in the life. " The 
future is lighted up with the radiant colors of 
hope. Strife and sorrow shall disappear. Peace 
and love shall reign supreme. The dream of 
poets, the lesson of priest and prophet, the in- 
spiration of the great musician " shall be real- 
ized. " And as we gird ourselves up for the 
-work of life, we may look forward to the time 
when in the truest sense the kingdoms of the 
world shall become the kingdom of Christ, and 
He shall reign forever and ever, king of kings 
and lord of lords." ^ 

XIII. — Results in the Creation of God. 

The results of the Christ's work appear, fur- 
ther, in the creation of God. 

The Christ's work has no limit of time or 
place. It is not confined to this earth or to 
the physical existence of man. He preaches to 
spirits in prison in the bondage of disobedience, 
wherever they are. Grand as seems the work 
V of perfecting the individual soul or of renewing 
the human society on earth, the work of the 
Christ is infinitely larger and grander than that. 
It is God's saving and renewing work in all His 

1 Destiny of Man, by John Fiske, pp. 118, 119. 



68 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

creation. Christ is God pushing Himself out to 
the farthest bounds of His creation ; God reach- 
ing and permeating all life ; God strengthening 
the weak, renewing that which was impaired, 
perfecting the imperfect, completing the incom- 
plete, imparting Himself and His glory to all the 
universe. " The Father loveth the Son," said 
John the Baptist, " and hath given all things 
into His hand." ^ To the Christ is committed 
not only the care of this little planet and its 
people, but of all the creation of God. We can- 
not have a sufficient reverence for the Christ, 
unless we realize how much God has intrusted 
to Him and how much He expects of Him. He 
gave all things into His hands. " All that the 
Father hath," He said, " are mine." " All that 
the Father giveth to me shall come to me ; and 
him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast 
out." 2 Nothing less than this perfect comple- 
tion of the Christ's work was in the minds of 
the Apostles. Saint John says that "the Son 
of God was manifested that He might destroy 
the works of the devil." ^ All that is evil, all 
that is opposed to God, is summed up and per- 
sonified in the word " devil." This the Christ 
1 John iii. 35. 2 ibid. vi. 37. 3 1 John iii. 8. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 69 

is sent to destroy. Saint Paul states the fact 
from the positive side, saying that God had 
made known the mystery of His will, which He 
had purposed in Himself, " that in the dispensa- 
tion of the fulness of times He might gather to- 
gether in one all things in Christ, both which are 
in heaven and which are on earth." ^ He says, 
in plain and unmistakable terms, " the creation 
itself also shall be delivered from the bondage 
of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the 
children of God ;" ^ and he gives us that splendid 
picture of the consummation, which has not been 
surpassed: "Then cometh the end, when He 
[the Christ] shall have put down all rule and 
all authority and power. For He must reign 
till He hath put all enemies under His feet. . . . 
And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, 
then shall the Son also Himself be subject 
unto Him that put all things under Him, 
that God may be all in all." ^ " There is no 
power to come forth out from the beginning or 
the end, from the first to the last, with intima- 
tions of force or fear, that can . . . effect the 

1 Ephesians i. 9, 10. 

2 Romans viii. 21 {Revised Version). 

3 1 Corinthians xv. 24-28. 



70 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

subversion of the love that is at the source and 
centre of all things, or the disruption of the 
unity that is in the will of God, that is manifest- 
ing itself in the reconciliation of all things. 
The Christ says, ' I know whence I came and 
whither I go ; ' and again, ' I am the first and the 
last, the beginning and the end ; I am he that 
was, and is, and is to come.' " ^ The work of the 
Christ is not complete, it cannot be ended, it will 
not cease, till God is all in all. All things are 
given into the hands of the beloved Son, and 
nothing shall be lost. Creation shall be deliv- 
ered from its bondage. The glory of God, 
which is the fruit of the Spirit in all goodness 
and righteousness and truth, shall reach to the 
outermost bounds of the universe, and God's 
will in Christ be done. There will be no more 
rebellion, no more disobedience, no more weak- 
ness of spirit and will, no more evil, no more 
sin, but God shall have given His life through 
Christ to all. At the name of Jesus every knee 
shall bow with reverence and glad joy, and every 
tongue make haste to confess that the Christ is 
Lord to the glory of God the Father.^ 

1 Mulford's Eepublic of God, pp. 180, 181. 

2 Philippians ii. 11. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 71 

Such is the result of the Christ's work in the 
creation of God. Is it not blessed that behind 
the solemn and oppressive mystery of the uni- 
verse lies this great thought ? When for the 
moment we are looking off into the darkness, 
hushed by the silence, feeling the mighty gran- 
deur and the infinite power all about us, crying 
out perhaps with the Psalmist, " What is man 
that thou art mindful of him ? " — when it all 
seems too great for our understanding, and this 
great theatre of life and action, limited only by the 
bounds which shut in the stars, oppresses us with 
a sense of our own littleness and ignorance, — 
is it not blessed that then out from the darkness, 
out from the fathomless depths, stream rays of 
glorious light ? Is it not blessed that there are 
such lines of illumination across all this mystery, 
and we are assured that there lies in the sound- 
less depths an Infinite love, a Father's thought 
and care ? No greater thought can possess us, and 
none can be the source of a deeper content and 
peace, than that the Infinite Being wills to His 
creation only good. Nothing can more touch the 
heart and lift up the voice in glad praise than to 
know that the Almighty Spirit of this great uni- 
verse is swayed by love, and that all creation 



72 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

shall share the blessings of that love through 
the redeeming and renewing work of the Son 
of God. 

XIV. — Tests op the Christian Life. 

It is to be remembered that we are treating a 
practical theme in a practical way. We want 
the Christian life. We want to use every means 
to that end that God has placed in our hands. 
We want by help of these means to come near 
to Christ and to grow in Christian character. 
We desire that results appear. Now, there are 
certain tests which will indicate whether or not 
we are gaining the desired end. There is an 
inclination to neglect the tests. The beginnings 
of religious life have had the most attention. 
Greater effort has been made to convert sinners 
than to cultivate saints. More energy and zeal 
have been thrown into the work of conversion 
than into rigorous training in the Christian way. 
It has been at the cost of strength and life. 
Christian work has too often stopped at a point 
not far beyond the beginning. If tests have 
been applied, it has not been in the wholesome 
way indicated by Saint John in his First Epistle. 
He who has come within the Christian influence 



CHKIST IN THE LIFE. 73 

has not been moved to inquire, " How much 
progress am I making in Christian life ? " but 
rather to ask, ''Am I saved?" The popular 
mind has dwelt far more on the beginnings than 
on the progress of the Christian life. The peo- 
ple have been more concerned about conversion 
and salvation from future suffering and woe 
than about abiding in the vine and bearing much 
fruit. This has been a natural effect of the doc- 
trine of salvation commonly held, and of the 
old revival system. The tests of Saint John, 
which will be stated, have not been sufficiently 
applied. The great object of Christian experi- 
ence, the one special and supreme end, in the 
popular way of thinking, is gained at the very 
outset. That gained, it is easy to lapse back 
into indifference, or to make Christian disciples 
of the weakest sort. But the neglect of the tests 
is not wholly due to doctrinal teaching. It is a 
general failing. We do not like to square up 
our conduct with the highest standards. We do 
not like to trouble ourselves with the vigorous 
work which alone can show where we stand and 
what we are. It disturbs our ease and peace to 
take a thorough-going inventory of ourselves. 
We ought not to be indifferent to the develop- 



74 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

ment of Christian character. We must learn to 
identify this work with salvation. Salvation is 
character-building. There are tests by which 
we may know whether or not we have the Chris- 
tian spirit or are making Christian progress. 
There are connected with the great revivals what 
are called inquiry-rooms. A frequent question 
there is, " Are you a Christian ? " It is a good 
question, and we ought to be able to give some 
sensible and reasonable answer. But the answer 
should not signify merely a profession or non- 
profession of faith. It should tell of the life. 
It should make known the motives, the word, 
and the act. It should search the heart, and 
make known what is found. It should go 
deep into the soul, and inform us what is there. 
It would be well for the whole Christian world, 
all church-members, all members of congrega- 
tions, to hear the question, "Are you a Chris- 
tian?" To answer it intelligently would be a 
good healthy exercise, and fruitful perhaps in 
good results. And the inquiry cannot be better 
directed than by the Apostle John. He says in 
his First Epistle : " Hereby we do know that we 
know Him, if we keep His commandments,^^ ^ 

1 IJohnii. 3. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 75 

" Whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the 
love of God perfected : hereby know we that we 
are in Him. He that saith he abideth in Him 
ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked."^ 
These would be good words for the inquiry- 
room. These are good words for the Christian 
world. These are tests of the Christian life. Are 
we following Christ ? Are we walking as He 
walked ? Are we keeping the commandments ? 
But Saint John is still more explicit. We ask, 
perhaps, What is it to keep the commandments, 
what is it to follow in Christ's footsteps ? One 
need not read far in Saint John's Epistle before 
he will get full information. " He that saith 
he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in 
darkness even until now. He that loveth his 
brother abideth in the light." ^ This is one of 
the easiest and most quickly applied tests. It 
is equivalent to asking : What is your spirit 
toward the world ? Are you selfish or have you 
the spirit of Christ ? This is a searching ques- 
tion, a thorough-going test. But it must be 
applied. Then Saint John says again: "If ye 
know that He is righteous, ye know that every 
one that doeth righteousness is born of Him." ^ 

1 1 John ii. 5, 6. 2 Ibid. ii. 9, 10. 3 ibid. ii. 29. 



76 CHRIST IN THE- LIFE. 

Here is more light. We distinguish right from 
wrong. We know what it is to do right. Does 
one want to know whether he is really a Chris- 
tian, let him ask himself, " Do I love righteous- 
ness always and everywhere, in every form, 
in every shape ? Am I striving with all my 
might to do right to the best of my knowledge 
and ability, and after the example of Christ ? " 
" In this the children of God are manifest, and 
the children of the devil : whosoever doeth not 
righteousness is not of God, neither he that 
loveth not his brother."^ 

But we want to push the inquiry still further. 
One may say, " I love my brother man." But 
he may be pertinently asked : " How much do 
you love your fellow-men ? What evidence is 
there of your love ? Is it a sentiment that you 
enjoy all to yourself ? Do you sit by your com- 
fortable fireside of a winter's night, and weep 
mawkish tears over those who are shivering in 
cold garrets ? Do you enjoy your luxuries and 
comforts, and content yourself with wishing that 
every one could be so blessed ? " If so one loves 
his fellow-men, it is befitting that he study Saint 
John's word. " Hereby know we love, because 

1 1 John iii. 10. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. T7 

He laid down His life for us ; and we ought to 
lay down our lives for the brethren." ^ How 
can we lay down our lives for the brethren ? We 
are not called to the stake to meet a martyr's 
death. We have to endure no persecution. But 
some words of Saint John signify how we may 
lay down our lives. " Whoso hath the world's 
goods, and beholdeth liis brother in need, and 
shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth 
the love of God abide in him ? My little chil- 
dren, let us not love in word, neither with the 
tongue ; but in deed and truth." ^ If we see our 
brother have need, there is the opportunity and 
then comes the test. Saint James puts it even 
more strongly : '' If a brother or sister be naked, 
and destitute of daily food, and one of you say 
unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and 
filled ; notwithstanding ye give tliem not those 
things which are needful to the body ; what 
doth it profit ? " ^ Jesus said, " By their fruits 
ye shall know them ; " ^ and again, " Ye are my 
friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." ^ 
And the splendid lesson of the parable of the 
sheep and the goats must not be forgotten. Je- 

1 1 John iii. 16. 2 i^i^. iii. 17, 18. 3 james ii. 15, 16. 
4 Matthew vii. 20. ^ John xv. 14. 



78 CHRIST IX THE LIFE. 

sus there said that the righteous inherited the 
kingdom of heaven ; that it was prepared for 
them from the foundation of the world ; that it 
was theirs because '' I was an hungred, and ye 
gave me meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me 
drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me in : 
naked, and ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye 
visited me : I was in prison, and ye came unto 
me." ^ Astonished beyond measure, the right- 
eous say : " Lord, when saw we thee an hun- 
gred, and fed thee ? or thirsty, and gave thee 
drink ? When saw we thee a stranger, and took 
thee in ? or naked, and clothed thee ? or when 
saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto 
thee ? " ^ And the answer was, " Inasmuch as ye 
have done it unto one of the least of these my 
brethren, ye have done it unto me." ^ 

Such tests are ready to our hand. They have 
been neglected. Life has not been brought vig- 
orously to the Christian standard. It has been 
a misfortune that salvation has in the popular 
mind been identified with conversion rather 
than with growth in Christian character, and 
that prevailing doctrines and methods have 
made it so easy to get the impression that 

1 Matthew xxv. 35-40. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 79 

Christ's work in and for us was completed in 
the emotional experience of an hour. There is 
need of emphatic teaching that there is no genu- 
ine Christian life without constant obedience, 
and that salvation is only attained by the growth 
of the soul into the likeness of Christ. The 
application of these tests, then, is commended. 
They are Christian tests. They are from Paul 
and Peter and James and John, and from our 
Lord Himself. There can be no better religious 
exercise than to take such passages as have been 
freely quoted in this section, and make them 
daily companions of the thought, and, while we 
inquire after the welfare of our souls, let them 
be as a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our 
path. Nothing could be more wholesome for 
the whole Christian world than to pause in the 
midst of its activities, and apply these tests with 
conscientious vigor to its life. 

"Every one that loveth is born of God, and 
knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth 
not God ; for God is love." ^ " If we love 
one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love 
is perfected in us." ^ " If a man say, I love 
God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar : for 
A 1 John iv. 7, 8. 2 ibid. iv. 12. 



80 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

he that loveth not his brother whom he hath 
seen, how can he love God whom he hath not 
seen." ^ 

XV. — Incentives to the Christian Life. 

Are there any statements that may be made, 
any facts that may be presented, as incentives to 
the Christian life ? Of course there are many 
good reasons why one ought to live in disciple- 
ship of Christ ; but waiving the question of duty 
we ask now, What is there to invite one to be- 
come a follower of Christ ? 

There is just one powerful incentive, and that 
is the intrinsic worth and attractiveness of the 
Christian life itself. There is no better way to 
move quickly and deeply those not yet inter- 
ested in the Lord Jesus than to present to them 
the Christian life as it is. No stronger incentive 
can be held forth. 

For some reason there is a wide-spread false 
impression with regard to the Christian life. 
There are many outside the Church who either 
have no idea at all of what that life is, or 
else have a wretchedly false conception. Many 
people think of a Christian as one who stoops 

i 1 John iv. 20. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 81 

as he walks, who drawls his words, seldom 
smiles, is punctiliously pious, and terribly ex- 
acting; whom nobody loves, and few can get 
along with ; whose family do not enjoy him ; who 
quarrels with his church, but is always there, 
and exhorts and prays. Of course there are 
such pious hypocrites, whose religion is less 
than skin-deep ; and so this travesty on the 
Christian character has taken a firm hold upon 
those who have no great love of the Church or 
any of its belongings, and through them spreads 
its poison and does a vast amount of harm. It 
is a great pity that there is such an idea afloat. 
It is a great pity that in so many cases this false 
idea supersedes all others. But it is no wonder 
that the Christian life is not attractive to those 
who thus understand it. 

Perhaps the Church itself is partly in fault 
for the spread of this false idea. Not that the 
Church has ever presented such a type of Chris- 
tian character as its ideal, but it has neglected 
to show up in its true colors the genuine attrac- 
tiveness of the Christian life. The emphasis of 
its teaching has been elsewhere. The intrinsic 
merit and worth of the Christian character have 
not been dwelt upon. The Christian experience 

6 



82 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

has been set forth, not as grand and desirable in 
itself, but as a means of gaining heaven. It 
would be a gross slander to say that the Church 
has not inculcated a high morality, and sought 
to make the life conform to the example of 
Christ. But the hope of heaven has been the 
main thought. It has engrossed the popular 
ear; it has been so ingrained into theology, 
and so possessed the mind, that doubtless to-day 
the majority of devout Christians think more 
about their religion as something that will do 
them a great good after they die than as some- 
thing to make them fit to live here on earth 
before they die, and are more anxious about 
getting to heaven than concerned to love their 
neighbors as themselves. The common teaching 
has strongly tended to identify the emotional 
experience of an hour with the fulness and sulEfi- 
ciency of the Christian life. In this way the 
religious life has been made to appear something 
vastly less than what it really is. Christ's virtue 
and manhood have not been held up before men. 
A feeling grows up that heaven is cheaply 
secured. The main lines of Christian teaching 
hitherto followed do not, as they ought, connect 
every act, every thought, every throb of the 



CHRIST m THE LIFE. 83 

heart with the life that Christ would have us, 
live, but tend rather to produce a feeling that 
the lapses of the moment, the selfishness of 
to-day, the sin by the fireside or in the counting- 
room are not of any special account, because 
salvation is already secured. 

Thus the Christian life has not been strongly 
presented to men for its own sake and in the 
light of its intrinsic worth. When it is so 
presented its attractiveness will appear. No 
stronger, no higher incentive can be held up 
before one not yet comjnitted to Christ, than 
just to picture the Christian life as it is. We 
must trust in the simple and grand worth of 
the life itself. We niust publish it abroad and 
glory in its noble attributes. 

The qualities that go to make up the Christian 
are those which we cannot help admiring. We 
cannot refuse our homage to Jesus of Nazareth 
or to His genuine and faithful followers. The 
rankest infidel may be defied to withhold his 
admiration from a whole-souled noble Christian. 
The secularist himself makes up his ideal of 
manhood out of the.very qualities that enter into 
the Christian life. God never made anything 
more grand than a Christian heart; and every- 



84: CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

body has to confess it, everybody feels it. There 
is something in the Christian character which 
we cannot refuse to see, and, seeing, we cannot 
refuse to love. It has a worth and glory of its 
own. It controls and directs in its own way, 
invisibly and silently and yet with irresistible 
power, all the thought and love of man. That 
character permeating the life of the ages is like 
the great magnetic earth current. As every 
magnetic needle must swing at the behest of 
that great current, and though it vacillate and 
quiver under many shocks, must at last point to 
the pole ; so human love must swing toward the 
Christian life, and though under a thousand 
shocks it vacillate and quiver and point momen- 
tarily in this direction or that, it must at last 
come to its rest pointed steadfastly toward 
Christ. 

There is something inherently and of necessity 
attractive in the Christian life. The great need 
is to make men know that life in its real worth. 
Show them how grand it is, and how poor is the 
life that has not the Christian quality. We have 
confidently, continuously, earnestly, trustingly, 
and in the power of the Spirit, to present the 
Christ as He is, to make Him appear before the 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 85 

world in His own glory. This must be the 
sufficient incentive to the Christian life. And, 
be it deliberately said, if this cannot, then noth- 
ing can attract men helpfully to Jesus the Christ, 
or move them to become His followers and 
loyal disciples. 

XVI. — Rewards of the Christian Life. 

Lastly, the Christian experience has its ample 
rewards. These rewards are not to be urged as 
supplying motive ; they crown the life. He w^ho 
labors for them loses them. If the rewards be- 
come an object of effort, they are sure to be 
missed. The rewards are certain states of the 
heart and mind, bringing peace and joy ; they 
are the results of genuine Christian life ; they 
cannot be had without the unclouded Christian 
heart, — the pure, unselfish motive. He who is 
honest because honesty is the best policy is not 
an honest man. The very statement implies a 
lack of genuine honor. If dishonesty were the 
best policy, then he would be dishonest. He 
who does his neighbor a kindness in order that 
he may go home and ruminate upon his own 
goodness is a selfish man, and is by his selfish- 
ness debarred from the rewards of the Christian. 



86 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

He who conforms to certain prescribed condi- 
tions solely for the purpose of gaining a happy 
hereafter is working from selfish motives. 
Though he may take great satisfaction in the 
thought that his future is secure, he is far from 
having the true Christian's reward. If one 
would know the nature of the reward, he must 
come into intimacy with Jesus, — he must come 
into that frame of mind, that fulness of heart, 
which will enable him to appreciate the beati- 
tudes of our Lord; he must know something 
of the happiness of the poor in spirit, of the 
meek, of those who do hunger and thirst after 
righteousness, of the merciful, of the pure in 
heart, of the peacemakers, of those who are 
persecuted for righteousness' sake. The great 
reward is the possession of the mind and 
spirit of Christ. 

The rewards are indicated in the words of 
Jesus and the Apostles, and illustrated by the 
glimpses that we have of their own inner life. 
They are vastly different from the rewards of 
ordinary effort. We have made ourselves large- 
ly dependent upon our material surroundings, 
and demand as the condition of happiness favor- 
ing circumstances. Jesus and the Apostles made 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 87 

themselves largely independent of material sur- 
roundings, and their happiness was conditioned 
upon no outward circumstance whatever. The 
Pharisees sought the reward of right-doing in 
the enjoyment of a certain reputation among their 
fellows. They prayed and fasted and gave alms 
to be seen of men. Such a reward was very un- 
certain and unsatisfactory ; for it was subject to 
the caprice and jealousy of the whole group who 
were aiming to establish a reputation for piety. 
Thieves could easily steal this reputation, and 
make valueless this ostentatious fasting and 
praying and giving. But Jesus speaks of the 
rewards of the private prayer, of unostentatious 
fasting, of giving alms with the right hand with- 
out the knowledge of the left. These are the 
true rewards ; these are treasures laid up in 
heaven, " where neither moth nor rust doth cor- 
rupt, and where thieves do not break through 
nor steal." ^ 

We get a good idea of these rewards when we 
look upon our Lord in those moments when 
there was nothing left to Him but Himself and 
His Father in heaven. Then, though He was 
human and suffered most intensely in a very 

1 Matthew vi. 20. 



88 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

human way, there was above and around and 
beneath and through His sufferings a deep peace 
and joy. In all the final struggle, which was in- 
deed a sore trial to Him, there was yet a calm, a 
repose of spirit, a consciousness of God's pres- 
ence, a trust, a hope, a faith, that were His pos- 
sessions, His own all the time. When at one time 
the burden of the moment seemed too heavy, 
and He inquired within Himself whether He 
should say, " Father, save me from this hour," 
He met this thought with a greater, — "For this 
cause came I unto this hour." ^ In Gethsemane, 
at the trials, on Calvary, there is evidence of the 
strength of His life, — evidence that He had 
treasures in His heart and soul of which He was 
not deprived even in ignominy and death. He 
found His sufficient strength and joy in the con- 
sciousness that He was obeying the Divine law 
and carrying out the Divine will. " To this end 
was I born, and for this cause came I into the 
world," He said to Pilate, "that I should bear 
witness unto the truth." We can learn something 
about His sublime faith, and of its great worth 
to Him, and of how there was reward for His 
steadfastness and for His life of trial and suffer- 

1 John xii. 27. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 89 

ing, when we hear Him before the Roman gov- 
ernor, a prisoner in chains, already condemned, 
and under the very shadow of the cross, calmly 
saying, " Every one that is of the truth heareth 
my voice." ^ 

Saint Paul, it must be briefly said, gloriously 
presents to us the splendid rewards of the Chris- 
tian life. To be familiar with his record, and 
to supplement that record with his epistles, is 
to know what strength of soul, fulness of spirit, 
and a heart that loves God and man, can do for 
one who has sacrificed every worldly ambition 
and gone out to a bitter struggle, to a life of 
toil and danger and deprivation, in order to 
establish Christ's truth in the earth. We have 
only to know of his toils and perils, of his bit- 
ter contests with Jew and Pagan, to remember 
that he suffered imprisonment and stripes, was 
beaten and stoned, and then to turn to his 
words, " God hath revealed unto us by the Spirit " 
" the things which God hath prepared for them 
that love Him," ^ to hear him crying out, " Oh 
the depth of the riches both of the wisdom 
and knowledge of God ; " ^ to hear him calmly 

1 John xviii. 37. ^ j Corinthians ii. 9, 10. 

3 Romans xi. 33. 



90 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

asserting that he is troubled on every side yet 
not distressed, perplexed but not in despair, 
persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not 
destroyed, and declaring that in the midst of all 
that was adverse to and destructive of the joys 
and prosperity of the outward man, he was re- 
newed and strengthened in spirit day by day,i 
and that for this cause he fainted not, and that 
all his sufferings seemed light because he was 
looking upon the unseen and eternal truths of 
God, and living for them, and not for the seen 
and temporal,^ or, as we might say, not for 
the express and only purpose of being well fed, 
well clothed, well housed, and provided with 
all the material comforts that wealth can buy, 
- — we have only to know and appreciate these 
facts in Saint Paul's life to be amply informed 
with regard to the rewards of the Christian 
experience. 

We are not offered wealth nor any material 
thing, but something far more substantial and 
enduring. Wealth cannot give it to us, nor 
can wealth take it away when once it is ours. 
Calamity and sorrow do not furnish it, nor can 
calamity and sorrow deprive us of it. It is that 
1 2 Corinthians, iv. 8, 9, 16. 2 ibid. 17, 18. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 91 

breadth and depth of spirit and life which is 
the one constant force within us through every 
experience. To gain that is to be in fellowship 
with Christ, and to have a reward above all 
price. 

Conclusion. 

We have written of Christ in the Life : of the 
reality of Christ ; of what hinders His work in 
our hearts and in the world ; of what helps us 
to receive His spirit and to live by it; of our 
close and brotherly relation with our Lord, 
whereby we feel the touch of His spirit with 
ours; of Christian growth unto the fulness of 
His stature ; of the results of the Redeemer's 
work; of the tests of the Christian life; of its 
incentives, and of its rewards. 

One question remains to be asked. To it each 
one should give answer. Not to answer is al- 
most as much a sin as to answer wrongly. The 
question is this : Will you learn of Christ and 
have Him in your life ? Upon our answer to 
that question depends the worth of our lives to 
ourselves and to the world. These are days 
when one needs to live with eyes wide open. A 
hundred catchpenny thoughts and notions are 



92 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

afloat. We are beset with a style of life that 
puts spurs to false ambitions. The scales in 
which we weigh values are out of gear. They 
are telling off to the world that nothing has 
worth that does not clink in the balance. They 
have been so tampered with that they do not 
indicate the worth of righteousness and truth 
and love. In the midst of the error and sin of 
the world there is just one saving power, — the 
divine life in uSj and in us as it was in Christ, 
That is an everlasting fact, — " the same yester- 
day, to-day, and forever." " This is the record, 
that God hath given to us eternal life, and this 
life is in His Son." ^ That fact no argument has 
touched. The storms of severest criticism have 
beat upon it, but it has stood. The outposts of 
the Christian position have been many times 
built upon the sands, and the floods of criticism 
have come, and the winds of earnest thought 
have blown, and the outworks have fallen ; but 
the citadel, the strong fortress of our Lord, the 
everlasting fact that the divine life as it is in 
Christ is the world's saving power, has stood 
unshaken, founded on the rock. This fortress 
needs no defence. It wants nothing at our 
1 1 John V. 11. 



CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 93 

hands. It is our defence, our stronghold. Its 
strength may become our strength. It will fur- 
nish the vantage-ground of our life. 

The times demand earnest living. The youth 
of to-day — the young men and young women, 
who are taking their places as citizens, as busi- 
ness men, as guardians of homes ; who are 
coming on to fill the innumerable places in the 
schools, in the shops, in the professions, in 
every calling and every station of life — have 
glorious opportunities before them, and serious 
duties and responsibilities are laid upon them. 
If they yield to the temptations that wait to de- 
ceive and entrap them, if they are drawn into 
the purely mercenary and selifish style of life 
or into the ways of passion and sin, they may 
know that they are spreading destruction all 
about. They are working evil upon themselves ; 
they are doing harm to their neighbors and to 
the world. 

While, if their eyes are opened to see, and they 
learn to note how hideous are passion and sin, 
into what awfulness of degradation the trans- 
gression of the law of God sinks its victims, 
how selfishness is the handmaid of sin, and how 
the mercenary spirit eats out the best part of 



94 CHRIST IN THE LIFE. 

the soul, then are they in such mood as will 
bring them near to Christ. And if, further, they 
take Christ into their hearts and carry the 
Christian spirit into trade, into the home, into 
citizenship, everywhere into all the walks 
and avenues of life, then are they ministering 
to their own highest welfare, giving help and 
life to the world, establishing God's kingdom 
and doing His will in earth as it is done in 
heaven. 



Cambridge : John Wilson & Son, University Press. 



